Christopher Columbus and the New World of His Discovery — Complete eBook

CHAPTER XII

THE PREPARATIONS AT PALOS

The Palos that witnessed the fitting out of the ships
of Columbus exists no longer. The soul is gone
from it; the trade that in those days made it great
and busy has floated away from it into other channels;
and it has dwindled and shrunk, until to-day it consists
of nothing but a double street of poor white houses,
such almost as you may see in any sea-coast village
in Ireland. The slow salt tides of the Atlantic
come flooding in over the Manto bank, across the bar
of Saltes, and, dividing at the tongue of land that
separates the two rivers, creep up the mud banks of
the Tinto and the Odiel until they lie deep beside
the wharves of Huelva and Palos; but although Huelva
still has a trade the tides bring nothing to Palos,
and take nothing away with them again. From La
Rabida now you can no longer see, as Columbus saw,
fleets of caravels lying-to and standing off and on
outside the bar waiting for the flood tide; only a
few poor boats fishing for tunny in the empty sunny
waters, or the smoke of a steamer standing on her
course for the Guadalquiver or Cadiz.

But in those spring days of 1492 there was a great
stir and bustle of preparation in Palos. As
soon as the legal documents had been signed Columbus
returned there and, taking up his quarters at La Rabida,
set about fitting out his expedition. The reason
Palos was chosen was an economical one. The
port, for some misdemeanour, had lately been condemned
to provide two caravels for the service of the Crown
for a period of twelve months; and in the impoverished
state of the royal exchequer this free service came
in very usefully in fitting out the expedition of
discovery. Columbus was quite satisfied, since
he had such good friends at Palos; and he immediately
set about choosing the ships.

This, however, did not prove to be quite such a straightforward
business as might have been expected. The truth
is that, whatever a few monks and physicians may have
thought of it, the proposed expedition terrified the
ordinary seafaring population of Palos. It was
thought to be the wildest and maddest scheme that
any one had ever heard of. All that was known
about the Atlantic west of the Azores was that it was
a sea of darkness, inhabited by monsters and furrowed
by enormous waves, and that it fell down the slope
of the world so steeply that no ship having once gone
down could ever climb up it again. And not only
was there reluctance on the part of mariners to engage
themselves for the expedition, but also a great shyness
on the part of ship-owners to provide ships.
This reluctance proved so formidable an impediment
that Columbus had to communicate with the King and
Queen; with the result that on the 23rd of May the
population was summoned to the church of Saint George,
where the Notary Public read aloud to them the letter
from the sovereigns commanding the port to furnish
ships and men, and an additional order summoning the
town to obey it immediately. An inducement was
provided in the offer of a free pardon to all criminals
and persons under sentence who chose to enlist.